Egosoft Interactive FAQ

X³: Terran Conflict

Factories have two types of resources; primary resources and secondary resources.

Primary resources are required for a factory to start a production cycle, and are consumed when the cycle starts (how many of each are used depends on the type and size of the factory).

Secondary resources are not actually required by the factory, and do not affect production in any way. They have a lower buying price than the same ware as a primary resource, and are consumed over time (at a rate dependant on the value of the ware, roughly a third of the rate to produce the ware).

So what's the point of secondary resources? Well, there are two:

A secondary resource consumer helps remove any surplus of that ware from the universe. The surplus would otherwise halt the producing factories and possibly cascade a surplus of resources.

You can exploit the secondary resource consumption by building factories near secondary resource consumers. Consumption has a constant rate - that means steady income.

Note that factories built by the player never have secondary resources.